Geely Auto almost sheds cheap image, says President

Shanghai September 9 (Gasgoo.com) Geely Auto has almost shaken its cheap quality, low end and bargin brand image, said Yang Jian, President of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd., Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.

Geely Group, which acquired Volvo Car from Ford Motor, currently owns eight auto assembly plants, four engine plants, two transmission plants, five auto parts plants, three Universities and one automobile Institute in China, as well as Volvo Companies in Sweden, Belgium, and Malaysia. Moreover, it has a taxi company in London, England, a DSI automatic transmission factory in Australia and a jointly built electric vehicle production base in Tai Wan, Yang said.

In addition to the well-established R&D institutes and production bases, the Chinese automaker also has complete sales and service networks in more than 100 countries and regions, as well as fourteen auto parts suppliers from the top 20 among the Fortune 500 companies.

With its mold plant in Shanghai going into operation and the Intelligent Geely (IG) being put into production, Geely Group has mastered core technology of car manufacturing, closely following the international level.

We will dedicate to achieving a major breakthrough in powertrain, automotive electronics, energy-saving technology, security technology, environmental technology and other aspects in the future, Yang said, particularly in Geely's blow-out monitoring & braking system (BMBS) technology and other technologies such as new energy vehicle, lightweight, automatic transmission, active and passive safety and so on.

Geely will finish research and development of more than 40 models by 2015, Yang added. At present, the company has 40,000 employees from Volvo Car, over 7,000 engineers and various patents of more than 13,000. Geely sold more than 200,000 vehicles in the first half of this year, up 42% from a year earlier.